Mo’Nique says Oprah ‘betrayed’ her with show about her traumatic childhood

Mo’Nique didn’t hold back when reflecting on her years-long feud with Oprah Winfrey..

On Wednesday’s episode of Shannon Sharpe “Shay Shay Club” podcast, The “Parkers” alum opened up about the agonizing experience of discovering that a former talk show host had withheld information from her to exploit her trauma for ratings.

In 2010, Winfrey aired an interview on “The Oprah Winfrey” show with Mo’Nique’s estranged family. The conversation turned to how her brother, Gerald Imes, Mo’Nique Routinely Sexually Assaulted As A Child.

Although Mo’Nique says she approved of her brother attending the show, she would never have consented to her entire family participating in the on-air conversation.

HuffPost reached out to Winfrey’s representatives for comment on Mo’Nique’s allegations but did not receive an immediate response.

The incident occurred shortly after Mo’Nique won her Oscar for best supporting actress in 2009’s “Precious,” a film co-produced by Winfrey. Mo’Nique told Sharpe on Wednesday that Winfrey had approached her before filming to ask if it was okay for her to interview her brother on her popular talk show.

“When Oprah Winfrey called me and said… ‘Your brother wants to come on the show and he wants to apologize to you for abusing you, and he wants to tell people how to be careful about predators,’” Mo’ Nique remembers almost 58 minutes of the episode. Mo’Nique said she told Winfrey that she “didn’t want anything to do” with her brother or the interview, but that she was okay with him appearing on the show.

“I told her, ‘Sis, don’t scratch (the interview) because it could be a different person, and I don’t want to get in the way if that cat is a different person, I just don’t want parts. about it,’” Mo’Nique remembers telling Winfrey.

The “Bessie” star said she initially appreciated Winfrey asking for her blessing. But when Mo’Nique noticed that the commercials promoting the interview also included her parents and her other brother, who was once her manager and “knew how scared she was of the brother who was on stage.” , she felt cheated.

“We never talked about my mom being there,” Mo’Nique explained. “Imagine… (you see your family on a show) and they are talking about someone who raped you, and that woman didn’t tell you they were going to be there, how would you feel?”

Mo’Nique admitted that she understands why Winfrey made the decision to capitalize on her recent Oscar shine and tragic backstory, but she felt Winfrey “betrayed me.”

“If Oprah Winfrey had said, ‘I’m going to have your mom (on the show),’ she would have said, ‘Shut that shit up,’ Mo’Nique said.

Mo’Nique also claimed on the podcast that her family had first approached Barbara Walters about doing an interview, but the journalist told Mo’Nique that she had turned them down.

“’Mo’Nique, I told your family I can’t do that to you, I wouldn’t do that to you,’” the comedian recalls Walters telling her. “’You just won that award, why would I do that to you?’”

Last year, Mo’Nique explained to The Hollywood Reporter why he didn’t want his mother to participate in the interview.

“I watch the show and realize my mom is trying to make a dollar,” Mo’Nique. “I know my family.”

Mo’Nique told Sharpe that not only did she feel uncomfortable about her mother’s behavior on the show, but she was also in a strange position having to defend her mother to detractors.

“I was in the store and older women came up to me and said, ‘Your mom isn’t shit.’ …But she is still my mother! …I have to defend something. “I don’t need anyone to see my mom being greedy.”

Mo’Nique added to THR last year that she attempted to contact Winfrey after the interview aired, but was met with radio silence. She said she finally confronted Winfrey at a party in 2014.

According to the comedian, Winfrey said her brother showed up for the interview with the other family members, which Mo’Nique suspects was a lie. Mo’Nique said Winfrey also offered her a lackluster apology that was “something along the lines of, ‘If I’ve done anything to offend you, I apologize.'”

Mo’Nique maintained to THR that this apology was not enough and she “still demands and expects” a public apology from Winfrey.